Politicians snuck a bill into the massive budget agreement approved this week and some on Capitol Hill claim the hidden legislation allows the U.S. government to spy on its citizens more than ever.

“This ‘cybersecurity’ bill was a bad bill when it passed the Senate and it is an even worse bill today,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) of 2015. “Americans deserve policies that protect both their security and their liberty. This bill fails on both counts,” he said.

CISA was first crafted in 2014 and has been a hot-button piece of legislation ever since it was introduced to Congress. It passed the Senate in October, but has been in compromise stages between the House and the Senate ever since.

The bill intends to make it easier for private companies to share information regarding cybersecurity , including hacking techniques and ongoing threats, with the government. It reduces their liability for cooperating. The downside, according to critics like Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), is the legislation doesn’t protect citizen’s privacy.

“Airdrop(s) an entire cybersecurity bill which lacks important protections for privacy and personal information,” Lee said in response to the bill being included in the $1.15 trillion omnibus spending bill.

Tech experts are reporting that some of the items included in this CISA bill include allowing data to be sent directly to the National Security Agency (NSA) rather than the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and removes a restriction preventing data from being used for surveillance.

However, the other two changes in the bill are more ominous. This new bill removes governmental limitations that only data related to cybersecurity can be used. The government can now use data to look at other criminal activity. It also drops the requirement for the government or private companies to “scrub” personal information that doesn’t relate to cybersecurity before sharing it with government agencies.

Approximately 55 civil liberty groups began working against the bill last spring, submitting an open letter signed by security experts. Even DHS expressed concern over the summer in stating that the bill’s passage could overwhelm the agency with information it doesn’t need while it “sweep(s) away privacy protections.”

The United States does not have adequate screening processes for those entering the country on visas, according to one Republican congressional leader.

Rep. Trey Gowdy rejected arguments from the Obama administration that claimed they didn’t miss any warning signs in approving San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik to obtain a visa. Gowdy relayed his concerns during a Dec. 17 oversight hearing on the U.S. visa system.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Gowdy said, after hearing comments from administration officials. “There was nothing in her background that this administration says we missed … and yet there’s still 14 dead people.”

Gowdy said “it’s one thing” to admit that warning signs that Malik was a radicalized Muslim were missed.

“It’s another thing to argue that we missed nothing,” he commented.

Alan Bersin, assistant secretary for international affairs at Department of Homeland Security, insisted the system worked the way it is supposed to operated.

“There was nothing in the system that we used that would pick that up,” Bersin said.

Gowdy said the responses show the vetting process is inadequate and that the government needs to become better at getting information when it receives visa applications.

“I just listened to Ben Rhodes give a series of words like ‘extensive,’ ‘thorough,’ ‘careful,’” Gowdy said, referring to a top White House security adviser. “And I just sat here and thought, ‘Well, if all of that was true, how did we miss the lady in San Bernardino?’”

Gowdy said the notion that people have a right to come to the United States needs to end as well.

“There is no legal right to emigrate to the United States,” Gowdy said. “It’s a privilege that we confer to people.”

Four years before 14 people were massacred by terrorists, one of whom openly used social media to proclaim her support for violent jihad, the Obama administration rejected a proposal to screen the social media postings of visa applicants seeking to enter America.

A proposal outlined in an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo from 2011, designed to reduce criminal and national security risks, was rejected for fear of infringing on the rights of visa applicants.

News of the memo comes as Congress is working to correct the Obama administration’s mistake and pass a law that would allow such screening.

“Ignoring the online statements of those terrorists trying to enter our country puts us at risk,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce, California Republican this week.

“We should in fact be looking at people’s social media posts. That’s just common sense,” said former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., a Republican presidential candidates. “But we’ve defunded and tied the hands behind the backs of our intelligence agencies because of political correctness.”

In the wake of the San Bernardino massacre, officials found Tafsheen Malik, one of the two attackers who killed 14 people and wounded 22, had openly expressed her views. Malik “made little effort to hide” and “talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad,” the New York Times reported.

“None uncovered what Ms. Malik had made little effort to hide — that she talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad. She said she supported it. And she said she wanted to be a part of it,” reported the Times.

Those posts might have been flagged had the 2011 proposal been implemented.

The three-page memo, published on line by MSNBC, outlines how social media could be used to vet visa applicants abroad and inside the United States. The memo wanted the administration to “authorize” customs officials to “access social networking sites” to vet applicants. Eventually, a former DHS senior official told MSNBC, the proposal was scuttled by senior officials.

“The Internet is a treasure trove of intelligence gathering,” said former federal prosecutor Michael Wildes. “It’s shocking that this intelligence wasn’t utilized.”

In a newly released Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Intelligence Report, American authorities are warning of possible terrorist infiltration through the use of phony passports.

Following the conquest of Deir ez-Zour and Raqqa in Syria, authorities believe ISIS was able to acquire numerous blank passports, as well as passport printing machines, from government offices. With these machines, it is believed that ISIS now has the capability of producing illegitimate passports that are near indistinguishable from legitimate ones.

The possible use of these passports has created grave concerns amongst intelligence officials, as it seriously undermines their ability to know who is coming into the country. According to an ABC News investigation, several of these passports have already been discovered in Europe, with two being used by perpetrators of the Paris terrorist attack who entered the country accompanying Syrian refugees.

ISIS Passport Machine. Image Credit: Screenshot ABC News Video

The possibility that such individuals could infiltrate the United States has become a real concern. According to FBI Director James Comey, “the intelligence community is concerned that they have the ability, the capability, to manufacture fraudulent passports, which is a concern in any setting.”

While visas are still required to enter the country, the prevalence of fraudulent documentation in Syria makes it incredibly difficult to trace individuals through their records.

According to the source who provided this information to U.S. officials, “fake Syrian passports are so prevalent in Syria that Syrians do not even view possessing them as illegal.” The source goes on to say that these passports “can be obtained in Syria for $200 to $400 and that backdated passport stamps to be placed in the passport cost the same.”

The final page of the HSI report warned: “If ISIS ability to produce passports is not controlled, their operations will continue to increase and expand outside of their operational controlled areas.” This new report is sure to add a new dimension to the current immigration and refugee debate.

As the Obama administration claims it will keep potential terrorists out of the country, a congressman has revealed that the agency charged with stopping terrorists has many of its own employees on a terror watch list.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., made the revelation last week as part of his explanation for supporting a bill to put more stringent standards in place to screen Syrian refugees who want to come to America.

“Back in August, we did an investigation—the inspector general did—of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security,” Lynch told Boston Public Radio.

Lynch noted that a recent report showed incomparable ineptness by the Transportation Security Administration, which is overseen by DHS.

“We had staffers go into eight different airports to test the Department of Homeland Security screening process at major airports. They had a 95 percent failure rate,” Lynch said.

“We had folks—this was a testing exercise, so we had folks going in there with guns on their ankles, and other weapons on their persons, and there was a 95 percent failure rate,” he said

As a result Lynch has “very low confidence” in the DHS.

“I think we desperately need another set of eyeballs looking at the vetting process,” he said. “That’s vetting that’s being done at major airports where we have a stationary person coming through a facility, and we’re failing 95 percent of the time.”

“I have even lower confidence that they can conduct the vetting process in places like Jordan, or Belize or on the Syrian border, or in Cairo, or Beirut in any better fashion, especially given the huge volume of applicants we’ve had seeking refugee status,” Lynch said.